A Tale of Two Countries

The ‘F’ Words: will Facebook and Foursquare make us four-eyed?

Ever felt like throwing your laptop out of the window because you’re fed up with modern technology that’s supposed to make life easier actually making it more complex? I’m pretty sure we’ve all experienced the “computer says no” frustration of an online banking system failing to perform an urgent transaction or an online shopping cart that repeatedly refuses to debit our credit card. And then we have the perils of today’s popular social media sites. “If you can’t beat it, join it”, as the old adage goes. And that’s what we do, joining social media sites such as Facebook in our droves…

 

At an August get together of some Brighton-based bloggers, the conversation turned from Facebook and Twitter to Foursquare – a new-fangled web and mobile application that encourages users to connect with friends and update their location by "checking in" at whatever venue they’re visiting. Users earn points for this checking in process and, if they do it from a particular venue on more days than anyone else, they’re titled “Mayor” of that location. One girl laughed that she’d earned the dubious privilege of becoming “Mayor of Morrisons”.

 

While Foursquare sounds amusing and it could be a good way of identifying kindred spirits in a bar you plan to visit imminently, it also sounds like a handy resource for burglars, stalkers and those who want to pin you down for a “friendly drink” when you’d rather avoid them. And, indeed, does the online community really need to see us checking in at our local chip shop, park bench or favourite public convenience we visit daily when we have nothing better to do? My Mother keeps saying: “Why don’t you keep your private lives to yourselves?” Oh but it’s so much more fun to share our every move… or is it?

 

People frequently complain that “big brother is watching us” when it comes to store cards that track our shopping habits, speed cameras that measure our MPH and CCTV cameras deployed in public places, yet it seems that we don’t mind proactively broadcasting our exact location online. Perhaps Channel 4’s ‘Big Brother’ is partly responsible for this trend: thanks to social media such as Facebook and Foursquare, we can all be the stars of our own “reality internet” performances, 24/7 and with very few editorial restrictions.

 

I hold my hands up to various Facebook “broadcast” crimes during my two years as a member: i.e. posting dull-as-dishwater status updates, moaning about my lot, airing personal grievances and starting catty ‘Facebook wars’. OK, so my updates on the “Jo Ego Show” have never been quite as bad as “I’m doing the dishes now” or “I’ve just changed a nappy” but they’ve come close.  I asked myself recently: would I stand with a megaphone in Brighton’s Churchill Square and broadcast the same material to 325 people who were physically present? I think not. “Hah but would you manage to gather that many people in one spot anyway,” said a critic from my Facebook friends list. Whatever – the point stands that I wouldn’t tell the gathered crowd that “I’m in a bad mood today”, “I’ve got a hangover because I drank some cheap vino” or “my little boy has just poohed on the floor”, so why does it seem OK to do this on Facebook? Because you can’t see the people’s faces and their true reactions to the worst of one’s self-serving claptrap, that’s why!

 

I recently had ‘interpersonal issues’ with a friend who thought that the Facebook updates I posted while on ‘holiday’ (I use that word advisedly: I’m married to my laptop these days) were all about him. Err, but what about the other 324 people on my friends list who might be viewing my status updates and were simply fascinated to know that I drank a couple of tequilas and pulled a mate’s curtain rail down (two separate incidents: both equally, ahem, enthralling).

 

My sparring partner grumbled: “You’re trying to wind me up with your updates. I don’t put anything about what I’m doing on Facebook.” Err. Apart from the fact that’s not strictly true, isn’t the whole point of Facebook to show and tell people what we’re doing? Or, perhaps, some people think it exists to be used as a glorified dating site – a different sort of “show and tell”.

 

Personally, I think social media has a lot to answer for in the ‘noughties’. It’s quickly turning from “social media” into “anti-social media”, what with the tendency to encourage late night Farmville and Zynga Poker addiction, fostering misunderstandings between friends and instilling bad feeling between partners. It’s all too easy to descend into “ooh but you’ve got your ex on your friends list so why shouldn’t I have mine, blah blah, bleat bleat”, in between fits of furtive snooping on third parties’ profile pages, where you can learn that they just did the dishes and that their child poohed on the floor.

 

And just think of the social scenarios we must handle today that weren’t an issue three years ago. Such-and-such hasn’t accepted our friend request so they must hate us (cue fit of hideous, creeping paranoia); such-and-such has defriended us; such-and-such has turned us off their news feed so we’d better turn them off ours as well. Ner ner ner ner ner! This level of playground-quality behaviour is hardly surprising, given that Facebook was designed for freshers (i.e. new university students) in the States before it became popular as resource for every man, his dog and its laptop.

 

So let’s get Facef*cked, Foursquared and four-eyed, shall we? Or shall we slam down the lids on our collective laptops, realise that we’re not really stars of our own reality internet shows – we’re often sharing all that is trivial and mundane – and go back to using a pen and paper if we really must communicate our every waking thought? Perhaps, upon rereading our own written comments, we’d quickly become bored with the dross we write in “dear diary” and consign it to the deepest, darkest desk drawer where it belongs?

 

In these days of iPads with downloadable apps that do everything from show share prices to play womb sounds to soothe babies to sleep, GPS tracking devices installed on Blackberry phones and YouTube footage from camera phones being shown on serious news programmes, there’s no turning back the technology clock... but that doesn’t mean I can’t fantasise about shutting the lid on Pandora’s Box.

 

Perhaps the Amish have the right idea. Their idea of “social media” would be a barn-raising. I’m starting to think they’re doing themselves a big favour and they’ll have the last laugh when we’ve Twit-Faced ourselves to insanity and turned ourselves completely four-eyed in a few years’ time.

 

Hmm! Enough said. Must get back to my Facebook now…

Viva the Family Values of Espana: a.k.a. No Small Children Please, We're English

When I was strolling home from a mate’s house in Lanjaron with my two little boys on Saturday night – one snug in a buggy, the other walking beside me – a group of elderly ladies sitting on a bench waved and smiled at us. It struck me that if we had been traversing an English street at 11pm, local people might be more inclined to call the police and report Mummy for not having the boys in bed by 8pm.

In a similar vein, I was browsing people’s English Facebook status updates recently and one Mum reported that the police had turned up – sirens and all – because she’d left her child sleeping in the car outside her house for a short while. Surely this is a tad heavy handed? If the car door was open and the key in the ignition or the vehicle was parked in bright sunshine, fair enough – remedial action would be required. However, I’ve left my two boys sleeping in the van for 10 minutes occasionally while unloading my shopping here in Spain of an evening (one pair of hands does not carry two tired children and several shopping bags simultaneously!) and I’d be surprised if the Guardia Civil or Local Policia turned up to check us out. And why is that? Because people here are more chilled out towards kids, life and ‘health and safety risk’ in general and they don’t spend their lives obsessing 24/7 about paedophiles and child-snatchers.

Yes, we need to watch out for “nasty people” and make our kids aware that they shouldn’t put themselves in danger. However, the English fixation with monitoring everything and everyone with a fine toothcomb in case there’s a paedophile at large is clearly leading to an unhealthy fascination with the whole subject and causing ‘normal’ upstanding citizens to focus unduly on the topic of child sex, child nakedness, ‘rude’ photos, etc., etc., when they should be focusing on having innocent fun with their offspring instead. I’d even hedge a bet that more of this content is looked up online these days because of the endless publicity it has received. And Brits seem to forget that the odds of having a car accident or being run over in the street are higher than turning into the next unfortunate McCann family. But we don’t all avoid our cars, do we, in case we have a fatal crash on the motorway?

As a friend of mine who used to work in child protection said: “all this focus on who might be a paedophile yet most children are abused by someone they know, not by a stranger”.  And, as a result, kids don’t play outside in England as much as they should: they sit inside using their PS3, watching TV, gorging on pizza and chips and becoming unnecessarily obese.

As well as being gripped by a moral panic concerning other people’s proclivities, in England, kids aren’t allowed to be kids: we’re still partly living in the Victorian “should be seen and not heard” era. I was in a coffee shop in the entrance to the Granada branch of Alcampo (similar to ASDA) the other day and a charity volunteer was giving children swords made out of balloons. Several Spanish kids were rushing around bashing each other with the aforementioned balloon swords and screeching merrily. Imagine if that happened in ASDA? Some disgruntled shopper would surely call security to tick off the parents and ask the kids to pipe down.

OK, so my boys can be noisy and badly behaved at times – they can also bounce off walls if they’ve eaten sugar. And that’s not ideal when it happens outside my own home. But nothing gives English people the divine right to glare at my family because the boys have moved a few metres away from their seats in a cafe or restaurant. My elderly Mum almost freaked out in a Sainsburys cafe in Northumberland because so many fellow diners were staring at the boys in a most unfriendly manner as they checked out their surroundings. Furthermore, it’s unnatural for toddlers to remain seated and perfectly still for the duration of – for example – a two or three course meal. I challenge the ‘starers and glarers’ to do better at ‘child calming’ themselves! Experience demonstrates that this sort of ‘nay saying’ doesn’t happen here in Spain. As long as the kids aren’t tripping up customers or waiters, rolling on the floor, screaming, throwing food around, feeding stray cats, etc., natural movement is simply accepted as “what kids do”. Other customers are more likely to give them a pat on the head or a lolly than make snide comments about “kids being out of control”.  

On my other blog – “Letting off Steam” for the Brighton Argus – I recently mentioned how Spanish people will approach you and get involved if they think your kids are too hot / too cold / need some sort of attention. In England, everyone seems keen to tut tut and express a negative opinion but they steer clear of (for example), telling Mum that it’s dangerous and stupid to place a five month old baby in direct sunlight for several hours on Brighton beach (the baby concerned had to be hospitalised with 20 degree burns). As also stated on my other blog, I feel sure that family-orientated Spanish sunbathers would have spotted the hideous oversight and intervened before it was too late.

So there we have it: good old Blighty! The citizens can continue to maintain a safe distance from the rest of the community while sneering at other people’s parenting abilities and rolling their eyes at kids who are behaving “age appropriately” (i.e. moving around) in a social setting, such as a cafe or pub. And the end result? “Broken binge drinking Britain” where school-age kids need ASBOs, teenagers are overdosing on “meow”, and legislation combined with the pervading culture makes it difficult for one’s family to enjoy a bar snack in a licensed premises after 7pm.

On just about all fronts, Spain has a demonstrably better idea of how to maintain “family values”, methinks. And the Spanish community can stage an event such as the Lanjaron ‘Fiesta de Agua Y Jamon’ in June – where all generations from age zero to 90 celebrate together and a large water fight takes place on the final night – without it descending into an event requiring crowd control, riot police, involvement from social services and/or accidental injury lawyers to handle specialist cases from people who tripped over in their wet flip flops and bruised their ankle. “Viva Espana para la familia”, I say!

Cast adrift on memory bliss? Spanish road trip tales and arrival adjustment.

Long time, no post, dear reader. I’ve been neglecting my blogs while getting my proverbial pants in a twist over the recent road/ferry trip from England to Spain. When I was ‘sans ninos’, or when I had just one little baby, I used to hop on to planes without a care in the world. But I’m starting to think that “upheaval is the mother of mis-invention” and I dread the process of packing and loading/unloading, unpacking... half-filled bags everywhere. Argh!

Ship ahoy

Misgivings aside, the sea and land-borne trip was completed last week, thanks to (a) a bickering ‘co-pilot’ who disliked my tendency to play endlessly with Facebook for BlackBerry en route and (b) the Brittany Ferries’ Cap Finistere vessel. Nice ship but shame the swimming pool on the roof was closed and we considered it sinful that there was no ‘middle ground’ for dinner options between haute cuisine and budget sandwiches. A £60 family restaurant dinner didn’t appeal (a meal for four cost us a purse-friendly £22 on P&O’s ‘Pride of Bilbao’ last October) and I felt as if another packet of crisps or pre-packaged wrap might send me overboard. However, breakfast made up for this shortfall, with a decent full English served for 3.95 Euros.  

My preference for Brittany Ferries pervades even though the Cap Finistere had a conspicuous lack of kids’ entertainments. P&O’s ‘Pride of Bilbao’ has a well-run kids’ club but it’s unfortunately located directly opposite the shop which features bumper packs of Minstrels and Smarties at kiddie grabbing height. The Cap Finistere is a better class of ship and the crossing is 12 hours shorter than on P&O, which means there’s less time to waste money on food and drink. Furthermore, there were no ‘booze croozers’ or gnarly old ladies tutting at my toddlers.  However, I was chatted up by a dodgy Spanish bloke in the ‘nightclub bar’. Despite obvious glares from the barmaid, he bought me two glasses of vino blanco and then tried to hand me his spare room key. “Oooh nooo!” I whinnied. “I’ve got another adult in the cabin and two small children.” I was duly escorted back to my cabin by a tattooed bloke – it was definitely time to flee.

Road trip rage

After disgorging from the ferry (helpful hint: note the location of your vehicle in the parking decks to avoid searching for it amongst fume-laden articulated lorries while fully loaded with toddlers and luggage), it was time to head south from Santander to Granada Province. Map reading is an activity that can strain even the calmest of relationships and my relationship with the ‘co-pilot’ can hardly be described as ‘tranquilo’. He was disgusted by my tendency to look at my mobile instead of the map, which resulted in us driving in the wrong direction on the autovia for at least an hour. Oops.

Many hours and a slight van fault later (it kept going into “limp mode”, which is never desirable, ladies and gents), we arrived in La Alpujarra in the ‘dead’ of the night. Although I was fearful to inspect my Spanish house after hearing tales of the trail of mould, dog poo and sick-covered towels left by dodgy tenants, I discovered that the wreckage was confined to a ruined set of pans, clearly used as chip pans, and three missing wooden child chairs, presumably incinerated in the wood-burning stove during winter.  So no hideous surprises there – although burning kids’ chairs is beyond the pale, really. What Is Wrong With Some People?

Adjusting to La Alpujarra

It takes me a few days to adjust to a new environment. After almost a week in La Alpujarra, one thing that strikes me is: I want Tesco Direct back. Instead of spending 20mins on an online shopping cart from the comfort of my own home, on Saturday evening it took five hours to visit Granada Carrefour for the family’s weekly food shop. Thrilling, ey? My two little boys were bored after an hour and proceeded to graze the produce. They enjoyed a baguette and strawberries by the pescaderia (fish counter); a whole box of chopped sausage by the ham counter; some Baby Bels by the cracker counter; a Gatorade in the condiment aisle; a strawberry milk drink beside the frozen goods... and then my youngest started screaming for sweeties beside the checkout. Oh dear!

This is where it All Started Going Wrong. My normally patient eldest son suddenly announced “I need a poo and I need it now, Mummy!” and started placing his hands down the back of his trousers – not a good sign. Trying not to abandon either child or lose my place in the long queue, I ushered my eldest towards the toilets then asked some Spanish people to watch my youngest, who was still creating a fuss in the trolley. I then followed my eldest to the loo but couldn’t see him anywhere. After a heart-stopping moment, he emerged near the checkouts and we resumed our place in the queue, whereupon he duly “entertained” the Spanish shoppers by throwing a large pineapple at the conveyor belt and loudly playing a mouth organ pinched from Daddy. Muttering “mucho tiempo en la tienda” and looking red faced, I stuffed groceries into plastic bags, aware that I looked like a lost-it single mother case who couldn’t control her children. Meanwhile, my youngest was still screaming and gesticulating at sweeties, while the well-behaved Spanish toddlers viewed the spectacle with bemusement. By this time, it was 11pm. I ushered my boys into the MacDonalds concession, where several Spanish kiddies were playing on the indoor play frame. Can you imagine that in England? Someone would probably call Social Services if you took your toddlers into MacDonalds after 8pm.

Will I stay or will I go?

The dust of the journey has settled now. But after having the dullest weekend I can remember in a long time, and with considerations about my sons’ education in the UK, I’m unsure whether I’ll remain in Spain for summer or go back to Blighty in mid May. Is it the people or the place that count most? After giving the matter 'mucho' consideration, I’d say it’s the people. I prefer it here in Spain: besides the climate, there’s more room in ‘mi casa’ for the kids to play and, well, the lifestyle’s more laid back, innit.  Not forgetting the cheap vino and the cheaper diesel. But my closest old mates and constant companions are in England and that counts for something. Furthermore, moving around with two toddlers and juggling such undertakings with work certainly takes it out of you. Watch this space... will I stay or will I go now... if I stay, there will be trouble... if I go, it will be double. Or will it just turn into a prolonged episode of ‘The Simple Life’. And is that what I really, really want anyway? Watch this space...

Something for nothing and the chips are free?

As mentioned in previous blog entries, I’m a big fan of charity shopping as well as car boot sales, known as ‘rastros’ in Spain. Much of my wardrobe consists of the fruits of this relatively harmless hobby, which sometimes become the ‘victims’ of my various dye and bleach bath experimentations. Occasionally I worry about hoarding but you can always give garments back to the charity shop if they lose their appeal.

 

The charity shop habit can’t be properly indulged in Spain, however, because the second hand goods sector hasn’t been widely developed in Andalucia. The only outlet of this type I’ve encountered is the “mujeres shop” (women’s rescue charity shop) in Orgiva. Often, Spanish people chuck unwanted and sometimes unworn clothing items into the municipal bin or the skip and yours truly has been known to dish out designer kiddies’ clothing and shoes (this may sound disgusting but the haul and smiling faces of the recipients were well worth it).

 

While in East Sussex, I enjoy visiting numerous charity shops, especially those in Hove, Lewes or round the corner from my house in Poohaven. Unlike the charity shops in central Brighton, the Poohaven ones often charge £2 for pristine items from good labels. I’m a big fan of one particular local charity shop which has better-than-usual bargains and I enjoy my weekly forage in there.

 

The other day, I ventured into this shop and headed to the bargain rail. You might imagine this rail would accommodate dodgy holiday-wear resembling the vile, pastel-coloured garments worn by the presenters of kids’ show, ‘Hi 5’. But lo and behold – an immaculate Paul Smith skirt priced at £1 was awaiting my custom. Feeling vaguely pleased, I wandered over to the till.

 

“You’re back in here again,” said the 50-something woman assistant. I wasn’t sure if she was being ‘witty’ or she actually thought I should stay away to give other shoppers a chance of bagging the best bargains. Raising an eyebrow slightly, I said: “I love it in here. It’s great. You can buy designer labels for £1, like this Paul Smith skirt.” The woman glared at me as if I’d said, “I enjoy indulging in bizarre, public sexual practices” and she snarled “I don’t do designer labels”. I calmly suggested that with some quality labels, such as Paul Smith or Karen Millen, the garments are well made and hang on the body in a flattering way. It was no good: the woman looked as if she wanted to hang yours truly instead of the clothes. You can’t win ‘em all and perhaps she thinks I swan about wearing D&G and Burberry before dressing down to raid the charity shop bargain rail.

 

For some reason, I keep thinking about the Dire Straights song, ‘Money for Nothing’, which features the lyric “and the chips are free”.

 

This brings me neatly to the subject of Zynga Poker, another one of those immersive, interactive, community games for Facebook members. If FarmVille wasn’t enough – sheesh – I’ve recently become aware that the online poker game is arguably more addictive than pornography: at least this is the case with the online user I know best. Plus, from what I’ve seen looking over player’s shoulders, the online chat facility seems to attract a fair few stalkery types who have nothing better to do than exchange inane banter for hours on end. Are the chips free or the chicks free? Should the mass poker experiment really be encouraged? Whatever, I’m still of the opinion that Facebook has “a lot to answer for these days” and I believe that penning a more extensive work on this topic could be the way ahead for me in summer 2010. Perhaps it will all change if Facebook is no longer free of charge. There’s always a payback in the end, methinks, whether it’s hours/days/weeks/years of wasted time or a fledgling gambling addiction. Watch this space!